Clocking Time
by MistressLeia24
Summary: One minute ago she was here, the next, she was fighting for her last breath. It was funny how easily a life could be lost. Even if that life had survived the final battle and beyond, she was still human. Tragedy oneshot. Hints of TearXLuke and GuyXNatalia


**Clocking Time**

**A/N: Yeah I know. I should be updating my stories instead of writing oneshots but I couldn't help it. I was in a tragedy mood and none of my stories really have heartbreaking moments like this so I decided what the heck, I'll write a little oneshot. Be warned: Character death. This idea came from an old oneshot of mine that I hadn't posted and I decided to do a Tales of the Abyss take on it. Not OMG worthy but I think it's pretty good. **

**All characters belong to their rightful owners.**

**Please enjoy! ...Or cry and blubber while reading this. Whatever floats your boat. **

_Thirty-nine minutes ago, she was rushed to closest doctor, random fonists and inhabitants off the street helping to get her bloody body there and attempting to stop the immense flow. _

_She was a legend; a heroine. Why wouldn't they help?_

The heavy clicks and thuds of his shoes echoed along the awfully white hallways, muffled sobs and the pattering of tears sometimes drowning out his frantic pacing.

_Fifty minutes earlier, many had smiled upon him and her as they examined the newest armor imported from Malkuth at Baticul's hectic market stands. Neither had noticed how the passing children giggled excitingly and the temporary widow would sigh with remorse at their linked arms. _

Not one of the four made an effort to halt his faltered strides, each having their own method of dealing with the piling stress and worry from staring at the walls and sobbing uncontrollably, to almost making a hole in said wall.

_Forty-nine minutes before, he had left her side for only a moment to inspect intricately designed silver sword, her own attention on a cute, small, stuffed cheagle doll just begging to be picked up._

_It was a wonder to anyone how she managed to hear the small click among the thousands of people packing the road._

"I-It's all m-my fault… Damn it! It's all my god-damned fault!" he cried, fist pounding into the adjacent wall and the force resonating for a good ten minutes. Not even his long red bangs could shadow the streams dripping off his sweaty and blood splattered face. "I-I-I-If I-I cou-could… have j-just…"

He trailed off, finally collapsing and openly sobbing on his drawn in knees, hands still caked with dried blood.

"…Luke …blaming yourself won't change anything. What h-happened today was… was… was a horrible a-accident," Natalia offered as calmly as she could muster, hair and outfit frazzled beyond belief from her mad dash here.

_At forty-seven minutes she had scanned the nearby crowd to find a man in a torn Daathic uniform with his psychotic eyes centered on the redhead, hand groping for something within the folds of his cloak. _

_It hadn't even take a second for her mind to register what was going to be played out right before her very eyes. "As expected of an Oracle Knight," Jade had muttered when the story had been relayed to him. _

"…Unfortunately, there are people in this world that can not accept the fact that the Score is banished and will do anything to tear down our newly established government," the fonist murmured, speaking for the first time in forty minutes, "even if it means taking a life in the process."

"Damn all those bastards," Guy spat darkly, teeth clenched and fists poised as if to take out his anger on the dented wall again. "Damn them all to hell!"

"Guy-"

"I don't want to hear it, Natalia!" The loud thud of his already bruised fist colliding with the wooden side table silenced even the chatter of nurses and patients two rooms over. "I don't care what their reason was; they didn't have the right to do something like that!"

_If the clock counted back forty-five minutes from now, she would have crying out for him to duck, throwing her own body at him to serve as a shield for the predicted bullet. The soft bang of the gun going off was the only thing that overcame her warning. _

_Little did she know that this seemingly small deed would cost her last breathes._

"I-I guess… being famous," Anise started, water leaking from her sore brown eyes and choking her usually chirpy voice, "has its…drawbacks." Tokunaga, battle-worn and patched up one too many times, was still clutched firmly in her locked grasp, knuckles turning white from the pressure.

"Yes. Indeed it does," Natalia choked out, limp hand tightening around Guy's white sleeve, who had long since abandoned his anger and hung his head dejectedly. A wink of the diamond resting on her fourth finger was caught in the fonic lighting.

Luke couldn't speak. He wouldn't speak. The flashes of the day's event kept wheeling by his mind's eye. She was here minutes ago; then she was gone in mere seconds.

He couldn't except it. No, he wouldn't except it. Any second now she would come stepping out the door, long brown hair whisking around her with a displeased frown when she saw him curled up like a small child.

Seeing the others, she would momentarily close her eyes, give a brisk, understanding nod, and flash her sad smile at him. "You idiot," she would say lovingly, irises glowing like selenias.

She would, no, she **had** to come back. She couldn't leave him here like this.

…She was supposed to watch him.

_Forty-three minutes… 2:31 p.m. …She could feel the bullet piercing just below her shoulder blade. The perfect aim. The perfect shot to kill. _

_Right through her beating heart._

"It's just not fair!!" Anise sobbed. The bottles of the tears that she had tried so hard to suppress now flooded over her wet eyelashes. "She… S-She never did anything! Why… …Why did-? Why did she h-have to-to-to…" Her voice suddenly died, unable to control its trembling whilst she started to once again cry uncontrollably on the soaked doll in her hands.

The rest could only listen to the hiccups and shaky sighs coming from the still young girl. What could they say? Everything was gonna be alright? Everything wasn't going to be all right; she was gone!

The fonist that had been there from the very start-traveling across every continent, every island, helping and battling in every fight, watching the problematic events unfold before her very eyes until the end, and being the first one to see the hero risen from the dead-had moved on to the next world. She had been through hell and back but a single ball of silver mixed with poison took her down.

_Forty-two minutes back the spot where the two had once stood was splattered with thick dark blood. The markets and all of the citizens had frozen in horror_

_He was struck speechless, still on the floor where she had pushed him, still safe and staring wide-eyed at the bloodied mark above her left breast._

_She had placed a wavering hand over the mark in alarm, as if not believing it was there. Before she knew it her knees gave out beneath her, her vision became spotted, and the last thing she saw was a pair of distressed green orbs staring down at her with a gathering crowd behind him._

_A small smile curved along her thin lips before she had let her tired eyes fluttered shut._

_'I love you.' _

"This… This isn't right," Natalia sighed, head plopping down on Guy's shoulder, who was surprisingly calm despite the contact. "She survived every encounter with the God-Generals and Van, yet she lost to single gun."

Jade adjusted the very bridge of his glasses; twitching lips strangely warped beyond their usual grimace or smirk to something in-between a forced grin and a genuine frown. "She is-was-human…and her immune systems had strangely collapsed, leaving her vulnerable to the fast-acting poison." He bowed his head in respect, making no move to reprimand the dejected replica who had his head propped on the wall; tears sliding down his cheeks as he stared at something far away that no one else could see. "It was all just an odd set of events that led to her downfall."

At this point no one could even say, or want to say her name. Brought back to many memories.

Tataroo Valley, Yulia City, Mt. Roneal where they had discovered that she was not too fond of ghost stories, the night on the Alboire, all the times she blushed and stuttered when Mieu had done something (by her standards) cute, sitting up in her room and discussing what it was like to have a family member on the opposing side, The Tower of Rem…

All of the moments recalled sent knives piercing through the four's hearts. For Luke however, it sent a surge of powerful fonic artes coursing through his body and electrocuting each and every nerve until he was numb.

_Twenty-nine minutes ago she had already been placed on the closest bed; Luke desperately clutching her hand and begging her to keep breathing as the healers and doctors took over. Natalia and Guy had been alerted of the incident and were rushing over faster than anyone could say Yulia. _

_Guy had his spasm of anger, trying to keep cool at the scene of his best friend weeping hysterically while being ushered out of the room. Natalia, however, had buckled to the floor, hands going to her mouth in pure shock even as tears leaked out of her ever green eyes and spilling delicately to the floor in crystal pools._

_The Princess had never cried since she had returned, but seeing one of her best friends lying in her own blood upon her possible deathbed was too much. She had broken down right then and there. _

"Damn it!!" Anise unexpectedly screamed, only succeeding in causing more tears to leak out and all eyes to turn to her. "First Ion, then Arietta, and Sync, and Largo, and Asch…now Tear too!! This isn't fair!!" Furious at the world, the puppeteer let her banged up doll fly across the room and hit the opposite wall. "When will people around us just stop dieing!?"

They all slightly flinched at the mention of her name but not one of them could answer. She was right; it wasn't fair that people around them kept dieing. It wasn't fair at all.

She didn't expect an answer anyways and just continued crying on her pink and white robes, gloved hands now clutching her dress in distress. Tokunaga lay abandoned on the floor; the nurses bustling about stepping crisply over him before continuing down the hall.

From beneath the shadows of his bangs, Guy glanced up at Luke with a hint of worry while comfortingly sliding his arm around Natalia's shaking shoulders.

The noble hadn't made a move from his position against the wall, dazed look over his watery eyes, head lopsided, mouth parted slightly… It was like he was frozen in that arrangement, not caring about the world or anyone else.

Just her. Her smile, her words, her eyes, her hair, her very being… And there was nothing the blonde could do to ease that longing.

_At twenty-two minutes in the past, Anise and Jade had been bursting into the doctor's office, sweat coating their faces from their sprint there. The three there still didn't know what her current status was and didn't know if they wanted to know. Nurses and healers bustled in and out of the room, some cloaked in blood and others carrying equipment in and out, offering small smiles to the awaiting group just outside the room._

_The first time Anise got a glimpse of Tear through the swinging doorway, she, like Natalia, crashed to the floor in fits of sobs and cursed everything related to Daath, even herself. Her small fist had pounded repeatedly against the blood-stained tiles, tears blotting her vision._

_Fortunately before she could hurt herself, the honey-blonde princess had embraced her like a mother would a child and had quieted her hysterias to muffled hiccups and sobs._

Luke banged his head on the wall behind him, water slowly seeping down his cheeks. Why? Why, why, why, why, why, why?

Where was she? She **was** supposed to have come back already. She **was** supposed to be walking through that door and comforting his fleeting worries. She **was** supposed to be strolling with them out of the hospital now, chuckling and crying at the near death experience with everyone.

She **wasn't** supposed to be lying eerily still on a table with doctors casting sorrowful glances at her as they passed. She **wasn't **supposed to be caked in dried blood, cold to touch, and her lips turning even bluer by the second.

She **wasn't** supposed to be dead.

A stray hand slipped to his pocket and fingered the silver band inside, droplets collecting on the ends of his eyelashes and blurring the images.

She **was **supposed to say 'yes'.

_Ten minutes before… 3:04 p.m… 25__th__ Sylphday, Shadow Redecan, ND 2018… In Baticul Hospital…_

_Tear Grants passed away. _

"It isn't fair," Anise muttered pitifully.

"W-Why her?" Natalia agreed, crying into the blonde's chest.

"Everything has its price," Jade chided, head bowed out of respect.

"Damn… I-If only… If only…" Guy muttered, trying to comfort that crestfallen Natalia while observing the state of his best friend.

Hearing their silent pleas, Luke wordlessly turned and looked at the door, lost in his own thoughts and silently letting his kept in tears fall down. Room 105… Room 105 was where she spent her last moments.

Not with her family on a grand bed, loving holding her husband's hand…  
Not heroically sacrificing herself for the world… Although it could be argued that she had risked everything for **her **world.

Not laughing so hard that she fell over unconscious with her friends…

But a strange, foreign room surrounded by nurses and healers telling her lies such as "Everything's gonna be alright. You're gonna live."

She had spent her last moments, alone, scared, and only memories to help her down the final path.

"Tear," he finally sobbed, knees being drawn up to chest and voice hoarse. "T-Tear…don't leave me. Please, Tear. D-Don't leave me here. T-Tear," he pleaded cries unheard as he broken down in a fit of tears and bargains just to let him have a few more seconds with her.

'I love you, Tear.'

_Six minutes ahead, when tears would run dry and voices were scratchy from all the weeping; one doctor would solemnly trudge down the seemingly never-ending hallway and relay the grave news. _

_His nose would wrinkle up, eyes downcast, and brow would furrow together before he would look each of them in their reddened eyes, preparing for their breakdowns. His gaze would linger on the redhead for a moment longer before it returned to the clipboard in hand. _

_It would break the hero; break him beyond repair until only shattered pieces remained with bloodied fingers at the attempts to put them back together. He didn't want to tell them, but they deserved to know. _

_They deserved to know the reason why her immune system was so weak when she was shot. Why she wasn't feeling good long before the bullet was even in her gaze. Why her breathing was irregular this morning. Why she had begged the doctors to save her and not let her die when she was half-conscious. Why she hadn't accepted death just then and why she had fought until the very end, looking at all the healers with wide, frightful eyes when she noticed the amount of blood on her body._

_Tear Grants was pregnant at the time of her death. She would have had twins…both with red hair. _

**A/N: Pretty boring, I know. Hopefully it at least entertained you long enough to read the ending. I just felt like putting a big shock at the end and this is what I came up with. Really just a spur of the moment fic. I apologize for any spelling errors and/or typos. I try and look through but my eyes can't find every single one of them. **

**Please review and tell me what you think! 101 Rules of Being a Fon Master Guardian is next on my list of updates! Look forward to it! **


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